6 ms·

Motorola Xoom up for pre-order at Best Buy this Thursday... for $1,199

14 points by davidedicillo 16y ago

Kilimanjaro 16y ago
$499 iPad, the more I use you the more I love you. Sent from my iPad.
- mikecarlucci 16y ago
  Even for people who call it a big iPod touch; the touch starts at $229. The bigger screen and battery aren't free. $499 is a fair price, even if 16GB of memory is a bit stingy. Funny to remember before the iPad introduction people were expecting $999.
  - danudey 16y ago
    And even at $999 people would have lined up in droves.
siddhant 16y ago
As one of the commenters points out, you could get a beautiful Macbook Air at that price. If it really is priced at $1199, its not just overpriced, its priced not to sell.
w1ntermute 16y ago
> Update: We've heard rumblings that this is indeed just a price holder -- much like the way other companies price products they don't want to sell at ridiculous levels -- and the final price will indeed be the $800 we've heard most consistently to this point.
- davidedicillo 16y ago
  Even $800 is still overpriced IMHO.
  - wmeredith 16y ago
    Yup. My other comment still applies. Maybe without the laughter at the beginning for $800. At that price (to quite John Gruber) it was doomed. At this price, it's just probably screwed.
wmeredith 16y ago
Ah, hahahaha. I dare people to keep saying Apple can't compete on price. It's an old saw that hasn't been true for years. I also think it's the primary reason for the dearth of competitors to iPod Touch and the iPad: two massive markets that Apple seems to invented (or at least been first to get right) and managed to keep all to themselves.
- joezydeco 16y ago
  But what does this really tell us about the price of iPads? Is Apple selling iPads at prices under the bill of materials, or do they have such a lock on things like NAND flash that nobody else can build a similar product for the same price? All the talk about screen size and HDMI and ports is noise in the final price. You need to look at what Motorola is paying for things like flash, processor fab, and Gorilla Glass to understand why the price is so high.
  - danudey 16y ago
    Apple saves a lot of money by pre-buying things like flash in massive quantity. It will drop millions all at once to ensure that it gets better prices than anyone else can get from it's suppliers, which helps keep costs low.
    - joezydeco 16y ago
      It's not just contracts on pricing that Apple is dominating, it's the actual production capacity of the chip makers. "Digitimes reported Wednesday that Apple recently placed an order of 50 million 8Gb flash chips that it plans to use for that iPhone thing you might have heard about, and therefore the rest of Samsung's customers will have to wait for their chips." http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-9983117-37.html http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-9983117-37.html So if you're scrounging for NAND on the open market, you're gonna get screwed on price. It's not just Moto that's feeling the pressure.
- zyb09 16y ago
  The complains are about Apples iMacs and Notebooks, which are still pretty pricey for the hardware thats in there. All the iOS devices are very competitive priced.

14 points by davidedicillo 16y ago

Kilimanjaro 16y ago

$499 iPad, the more I use you the more I love you. Sent from my iPad.

mikecarlucci 16y ago
Even for people who call it a big iPod touch; the touch starts at $229. The bigger screen and battery aren't free. $499 is a fair price, even if 16GB of memory is a bit stingy. Funny to remember before the iPad introduction people were expecting $999.
- danudey 16y ago
  And even at $999 people would have lined up in droves.

siddhant 16y ago

As one of the commenters points out, you could get a beautiful Macbook Air at that price. If it really is priced at $1199, its not just overpriced, its priced not to sell.

w1ntermute 16y ago

> Update: We've heard rumblings that this is indeed just a price holder -- much like the way other companies price products they don't want to sell at ridiculous levels -- and the final price will indeed be the $800 we've heard most consistently to this point.

davidedicillo 16y ago
Even $800 is still overpriced IMHO.
- wmeredith 16y ago
  Yup. My other comment still applies. Maybe without the laughter at the beginning for $800. At that price (to quite John Gruber) it was doomed. At this price, it's just probably screwed.

wmeredith 16y ago

Ah, hahahaha. I dare people to keep saying Apple can't compete on price. It's an old saw that hasn't been true for years. I also think it's the primary reason for the dearth of competitors to iPod Touch and the iPad: two massive markets that Apple seems to invented (or at least been first to get right) and managed to keep all to themselves.

joezydeco 16y ago
But what does this really tell us about the price of iPads? Is Apple selling iPads at prices under the bill of materials, or do they have such a lock on things like NAND flash that nobody else can build a similar product for the same price? All the talk about screen size and HDMI and ports is noise in the final price. You need to look at what Motorola is paying for things like flash, processor fab, and Gorilla Glass to understand why the price is so high.
- danudey 16y ago
  Apple saves a lot of money by pre-buying things like flash in massive quantity. It will drop millions all at once to ensure that it gets better prices than anyone else can get from it's suppliers, which helps keep costs low.
  - joezydeco 16y ago
    It's not just contracts on pricing that Apple is dominating, it's the actual production capacity of the chip makers. "Digitimes reported Wednesday that Apple recently placed an order of 50 million 8Gb flash chips that it plans to use for that iPhone thing you might have heard about, and therefore the rest of Samsung's customers will have to wait for their chips." http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-9983117-37.html http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-9983117-37.html So if you're scrounging for NAND on the open market, you're gonna get screwed on price. It's not just Moto that's feeling the pressure.
zyb09 16y ago
The complains are about Apples iMacs and Notebooks, which are still pretty pricey for the hardware thats in there. All the iOS devices are very competitive priced.